>> From the Library of Congress in Washington DC. >> Betsy Peterson: We'll get this show on the road now. And for those of you who have been to other events here today, you'll probably hear some of the same verbiage. So my apologies. At any rate, hello. I'm Betsy Peterson. I'm the Director of the American Folklife Center here at the Library of Congress. And I'd like to welcome everyone here to the latest presentation of our Benjamin Botkin Lecture Series. The Botkin Series allows the American Folklife Center to highlight the work of leading scholars in the disciplines of folklore. Ethnomusicology. Oral history. And cultural heritage. While also allowing us to enhance the collections of the American Folklife Center. For the center in the library, the Botkin lectures form an important facet of our acquisition activities. And by that I mean each lecture is videotaped and becomes part of the permanent collections here at the center. In addition, the lectures are later posted as webcasts on the library's website. Where they will be available for viewing for, to Internet patrons throughout the world. And also for future generations. So now, if you do have a cell phone that is on, please turn it off. And we will be most appreciative. Today I have the honor of introducing the distinguished ethnomusicologist Deborah Wong. Dr. Wong, who is a professor of music at the University of California, Riverside, is well-known for her research on the musics of Thailand and Asian America. She began her studies at the University of Pennsylvania. Where she started as a student of anthropology and music before continuing on to earn an MA and Ph.D. in ethnomusicology from the University of Michigan. She's taught at UCR since 1996. And has been deeply involved with the Society for Ethnomusicology for the whole duration of that time. Which is the premiere scholarly society for ethnomusicology in the United States. In addition to serving terms on the SEM board and council, she has also served as coeditor of the newsletter. And she was one of the founders of the SEM committee on the status of women. And has also served as SEM's president from 2007 to 2009. Professor Wong is also active in numerous other scholarly and public sector cultural organizations. She has served as board chair for the Alliance of California Traditional Arts. And is currently a member of the advisory board of Smithsonian Folkways recordings. Throughout all of this, Asian-American issues and activities have always been a priority for Dr. Wong. She's the author of numerous publications. Including the influential books "Sounding the Center, History and Aesthetics in Thai Buddhist Ritual." Which address ritual performance and its implications for the cultural politics of Thai court music and dance. And "Speak it Louder, Asian-Americans making music." Which focused on music, race and identity in Southeast Asian immigrant communities in the Bay Area. Including some wonderful research on Asian-American hip-hop. Most recently, for today's Botkin lecture, Professor Wong has been studying Japanese-American taiko drumming since 1997. And is a member of Satori Daiko, the performing group of the Taiko Center of Los Angeles. So we're delighted today to have her join us and present us with a lecture on taiko drumming in Asian-American Los Angeles. So please welcome Dr. Wong. [ Applause ] >> Dr. Deborah Wong: Hello everybody. How does this sound? Am I about the right? Yeah, okay. Well, I'm looking out at the room. I know almost but not quite everybody who's here. I am related to many of the people in the room. Thank you Wong cousins. Lee cousins. And Gunning [assumed spelling] cousins for coming. And, of course, to be near my valued friends and colleagues from the American Folklife Center this afternoon. It means a lot to me. Yeah, Judith, I haven't had a chance to hug you yet. But hello. Yeah, you know, and Betsy. And Nancy. And Steve. And, and, and, and, yeah. And John. And Lisa, yeah. And so, anyway, I am going to talk about my taiko research today. And I did not write this out. I'm not going to read blah, blah, blah to you the way that academics, you know, are expected to do. I'm instead just going to talk to you. And I'm going to use a PowerPoint to do it with lots of pictures and video and stuff. Because taiko, as you probably know, is a very loud, a very physical, yeah, loud and physical. That pretty much sums up taiko, I would say, yeah. And just so you know, there is another taiko player in the room. And that is Mark Rooney. And I'll tell you more about him when I get to, yeah, he's looking around like this. Mark Rooney who's an amazing taiko player. And the main taiko player in the greater DC area. And I'll share a slide about him at the very end, yeah. If you have seen taiko, you've probably, I'm guessing, seen this group. Simply because they're world famous. No exaggeration. And they spend about half of the year on tour around the world. So you, you know, generally end up having lots of chances to see them if you live anywhere near a major city. So if you've seen them, you've probably seen them perform something like this piece. Which is one of their most well-known repertoire. [ Drum Music ] Now, that's a Japanese group. I mean, and they are probably the most famous taiko group anywhere, any time. And that performer is Fujimoto Sensei. He's very, very well-known in the taiko community. And if you're watching that just cold, if you're not like, you know, a taiko nut the way Mark and I are. You know, you're probably just thinking, you know, whoa, these guys are like in really good shape; right? They are totally. They have like zero percent fat on their bodies. They're totally ripped, and this is a fact. The way they play has a kind of intensity and commitment to it that is not to be beat; right? Any of us who are musicians can respect that when we see it. And we generally know it when we see it. And these guys, and there are a few women in the group. But they're mostly guys. These guys play taiko, you know, like it's an extreme sport. And, in fact, there are very closely, a closely related taiko group in Japan that is in fact known for running a marathon, and I mean like a marathon, 26-point whatever mile marathon. And then playing a taiko concert at the finish line. You know, this kind of thing. So that does go on in the taiko world. I would, I hasten to say that it's a minority of groups that do that kind of thing. But Kodo and Ondekoza, the related group, do do that kind of thing. That's not what I'm going to be talking about today. Even though all taiko players know about these groups from Japan. And what they're like. And how they think and all that. But taiko is, as I always say, it's both a very old form of music. And a very new and contemporary one all at the same time. And it has deep roots in two Japanese religions, Buddhism and Shinto. There's much more to be said about all these points. But in coming to North America, and by that I mean the United States and Canada. Taiko has assumed very different kinds of meanings than it has in Japan. It is still closely related to what goes on in Japan because taiko is huge in Japan. Nonetheless, the meanings and the kinds of cultural things that taiko does for Japanese-American and Asian-American communities is profoundly different than what it does for Japanese communities in Japan. All right. What it does in the U.S. is it serves the kinds of needs that Asian-Americans communities have in terms of struggling for equality, for access to resources. For public recognition. For the right to speak and to be heard. And so on and so forth. Taiko has come to be, my argument is, that taiko is central to those kinds of struggles for Asian-Americans at this point. And I'm talking about things like this. I'm not going to go into it in great detail. But in case I need to convince anyone that Asian-Americans have struggles. These are two examples. You know, the Chinese Exclusion Act. Which took a long time to discontinue. To close. To, you know, to, anyway. And then the Japanese-American internment, of course. And that has just been in the news again with the supposed overturning the Korematsu decision; right? But in a way that really troubles a lot of Japanese-Americans as a matter of fact. So these are the kinds of things. And there are many other issues that Asian-American communities struggle with. Have struggled with. Continue to have to struggle with. Taiko is part of all of that. And I'm going to try and show you some ways in which it is as I proceed. Because not even all taiko players want to think of what they do as being embedded, you know, in these long-term struggles for place. For presence. A short story on sort of the demographics of taiko in the U.S. and Canada. Goes something like this. In terms of gender, it's about 60 percent women and 40 percent men. For a long time actually the percentage of women was higher. Maybe like 75 percent for a long time. And they seem to be shifting a bit. And I'm basing these numbers on a census that was done in 2016. So the numbers are pretty current. About 60 percent of all performers are Asian-American or Asian-Canadian. The others are primarily white. And the numbers of Latinx or African-American taiko players are really small. And I don't think that's a coincidence or arbitrary. I think that taiko is serving the needs of two ethnic groups as it were. Racial and ethnic groups. And a majority of taiko players are on the young side of things. In their 20s and 30s primarily. Most of us play as a leisure activity. There are very, very few, like, professional, full-time, you know, make-a-living-through-taiko kind of people who are part of the taiko community. Most of us are in community-based groups. Some are on university campuses. But most, the vast majority of us are in community groups. And you know what? The vast, vast majority of us are in California. Both Southern California and Northern California, yeah. Now, all of this is changing by the minute, you know, by the day. Taiko is in a period of rapid expansion right now. In fact, it's expanding exponentially. There are more and more taiko groups every time I turn around; right? So these numbers are going to change again. And I wonder if at some point California will not be the center of the, you know, North American taiko universe; right? You know, I don't know. Check back in five years, ten years. It's going to change. I don't know how though. Just to give you a sense of what California, Southern California taiko community groups look like, here's four. And I'm going to have fun with PowerPoint and show you four video clips all at the same time. It's going to be quite a sound. So we've got here Pasadena in the upper left. And, shoot, I can't remember who's on the upper right there. That's terrible. This is L.A. Matsuri Taiko. And then on the lower right is Zendeko from Zenshuiji Temple. So they're all in the greater L.A. area. Here we go. [ Drum Music ] So you're seeing, these are two temples in the greater L.A. area. This is at the finish line of the L.A. Marathon a couple years ago. Downtown L.A. And this is in Little Tokyo on First Street. Anybody from, any Japanese-American from L.A. would immediately go, oh, that's First Street. So, yeah, you're seeing a lot of young players; right? But you're also seeing multigenerational groups. Which is part of the magic of taiko, in my humble opinion, is to play with people often from three different generations all in the same group. It's really cool. [ Video Playing ] There we go, sorry. Here's an example of one, what we call first generation, arguably second generation taiko player in North America. This is Kenny Endo. The most recent picture of him is up here on the upper right. He's been playing taiko for just over 40 years. He just celebrated his 40th anniversary of taiko playing. He's from Los Angeles. He's Sansei, he's third generation Japanese-American. He started playing taiko in the 1970s. Which is, give or take, when taiko took off in the United States. He studied in Japan. And he's lived in Honolulu for some decades at this point. And is the founder and director of the Taiko Center of the Pacific there. So you're seeing photos of him here from about three different decades of his life. Here he is in his first few years of playing taiko. And my point here, looking at one individual for a moment, is to say that, again, the politics of taiko or the political significance of taiko may not always be right out in front. It may not be people, you know, wearing political buttons on their costumes; right? It's probably not going to be that. The politics and meaning of taiko are very deep, run very deep and are not always articulated. Kenny is not going to be the first one to tell you, and I use his name because he's a friend of mine. His first name. He's not going to tell you, oh, yeah, I became a taiko player through the Asian-American movement. That's not how he's going to explain himself, give or take. But, in fact, that is how he got started back in the day. Manzanar is one of the Japanese American internment camps. It's the one closest to Los Angeles where a lot of LAJA's got sent. The Pilgrimage is something that got started, in fact, in 1975. And this was politicized Japanese-American who's said, we need to work on redress and reparations. And we need to mark the camps. It was not a national park at that point in time; right? They started going just themselves to the sites of these former camps. And holding, you know, meetings and made rituals, you know, to go with cultural and political memory for the camps. This is Kenny and my teacher Reverend Tom Karye [assumed spelling] at the first Manzanar pilgrimage in 1975. There's Kenny. And look at these drums. This drum is from Reverend Tom's father's temple. A Zen, Buddhist Japanese temple. This is a wine barrel that's been made into a taiko. And not very well. You can kind of, I can see that, you know, it's kind of uneven. It's very homemade looking. That's Kenny, you know, 1975. This is how he started playing taiko. He didn't actually have a teacher at that point. There was only kind of sort of one or two other teachers for taiko in the U.S. at that point in time. Here's more evidence of where Kenny was at that point in time. We're now up to 1978. There he is. This is an Asian-American music group called Warriors of the Rainbow led by Nobuko Miyamoto. Still very active. I'm going to tell you more about her as I go along. Here they are in an all Asian-American band. You know, very much sort of putting themselves out there as radical Asian-Americans at that point in time. And there's Kenny. With his taiko, playing with them. So the question is like why taiko? Why were these young, mostly Sansei being drawn to taiko rather than to other Japanese cultural or arts forms; right? Because there are many. And they were also in the United States. Why not sumo? Why not Zen archery? Why not flower arranging; right? There's a lot of other cultural forms that Japanese-Americans could have turned towards. My argument always is that, as a musicologist, is that it's never arbitrary what people turn to in terms of performance and culture to speak to their needs. To address their needs. To allow them to explore their own needs and vision for the world; right? It's never arbitrary. I think that folks turn to taiko, and it's not just my opinion. People have told me this. Because taiko is about being heard. It's so loud, after all. It's about being heard. When taiko's going on anywhere nearby, that's, you know, that's all you can hear. And you can feel it for heaven's sake. I mean, the vibrations literally travel. It's about being seen. And Asian-American visibility is simply one of the conditions of being Asian-American, is that you're often regarded as invisible. You are not seen. You are not heard. You are not regarded. And, finally, taiko is about being strong. Because, although you can play, any kind of body and any kind of ability can play taiko. It does posit a body that has certain kinds of strength in it. And, in fact, to put it the other way around. Taiko creates a strong body in really interesting and important ways. So my argument is that taiko spoke to young Asian-Americans at that the point in time. And to a great extent still does for those reasons. For those reasons. I mean flower arranging is lovely. But it doesn't serve our needs, you know, in quite the same ways; right? That's my argument. Hi. This is the founder of taiko in the United States. And I'm not going to get all technical here. But by taiko, I am referring to a particular performance form known in Japanese as kumi-daiko or group taiko. Meaning a whole bunch of people playing a whole bunch of different sized taiko drums together. Okay. Seiichi Tanaka emigrated from Japan to the U.S. in 1968. In 1969, he created his own taiko school, a dojo. And created the San Francisco Taiko Dojo. Which is still alive and well and active. And very, very important in our scene. He's regarded as the founder of kumi-daiko in the United States. In North America really. And here he is. You know, very, very, very early photograph of him, famously playing at the San Francisco Cherry Blossom Festival. Now, this group, which you should absolutely, you know, go see them perform if you ever have the chance. Because they're amazing. They have a very particular kind of profile. They're known thanks to Tanaka Sensei's values and methods for teaching. This group is known for being way disciplined for supporting a certain kind of powerful playing. Sometimes it's called power taiko, as a matter of fact. The group itself is known for being explicitly hierarchical in its social arrangement. And it's also known for having a very "traditional" male teacher who calls the shots. Makes the rules. You do what he says, you know. It's a sensei model in short. And it works beautifully for this group. And Tanaka Sensei has created many of the second generation groups. That is, he didn't do it himself personally. But many of his original students from the 1970s and 80s, then eventually went off and created their own groups. Carrying forward some of his ideas and playing techniques; right? So his impact on the North American taiko scene is profound. Absolutely profound. And he did receive NEA National Heritage Award about 15 years ago. Something like that, yeah. Yeah, in recognition of that. Some recent work being done within the taiko community in the United States has suggested that any taiko player in Canada or the United States and possibly further away has no more than six degrees of separation from Tanaka Sensei. And you know what? When you start talking to people, you find out almost right away that it's usually fewer than six degrees. You know, it's often two or three degrees; right? Right? Mark's nodding, yeah. Yeah. So the particular article that I found about this, you know, has all these great diagrams. Like the one you're looking at. And taiko players love to look at this kind of stuff. Because it literally maps out our social relationships to one another; right? And lineages, if you will. So what I'm going to focus on from here on are three particular groups and individuals. They are, you know, just the tip of the iceberg; right? And I didn't choose them because they're like, you know, famous as much as they suggest different ways of playing taiko. And different kinds of values that they, different reasons for playing taiko. So I'm going to talk about Kinnara Taiko and then TAIKOPROJECT. And then FandangObon at the end. So let me start with Kinnara Taiko. They are known as taiko pioneers. And that term "pioneer," I can't say that I'm fond of it. Because it suggests the kind of, you know, what? Settler colonialism; right? But it is the term that's used within the North American taiko community to suggest that we can recognize the founding generation, as it were. And so along with Tanaka Sensei say who is often regarded as being like the only first gen pioneer. I would argue that Kinnara Taiko was the other first generation pioneer group. They were founded like, you know, virtually the same year as San Francisco Taiko Dojo. But they were located at a Jodoshinshu temple in Los Angeles. Senshin Buddhist Temple. Where I spend a lot of time. And what they did through Reverend Mas who's in the back there. Reverend Mas Kodani has explicitly positioned taiko playing as hogaku, as a form of Buddhist practice. Certainly a lot of fun to play, but not being played only for fun. You know, as a form of Buddhist devotion. And the structure of the group, thanks to Reverend Mas was very explicitly nonhierarchical. Which make it's profoundly different from San Francisco Taiko Dojo. And, in fact, egalitarian in how they acted stuff out. How they made decisions together. It was consensus driven. There were apparently hours and hours of conversation to make any kind of decision together; right? You know, this kind of thing. So this is a great photograph of a lot of those folks from that first generation. And many of them are still around and still at Senshin Buddhist Temple. I want you to see just a little slice of them playing back in the day. This is a documentary that was made in 1975 titled "Cruisin' J-Town." J-Town is Japan Town. It's filmed in Little Tokyo in L.A. And you're going to see first Johnny Mori, who is another noted taiko player in L.A. You're going to see him as a young man sort of making his way through the Asian-American movement. And going to Amerasia Bookstore. And then you're going to see him wind up at Senshin Buddhist Temple playing with Kinnara Taiko. And he's still with Kinnara. [ Music ] >> I look in the mirror, I'm traditional Japanese looking. I mean, I got slanted eyes. The black hair; right? So every day I look, you know, it's Japanese. But yet, on the other hand, I'm Japanese-American. I can relate more to a black or a Chicano than I can to a person from Japan. So that's why, you know, creating an Asian-American thing that I could feel comfortable with, you know, I think it's pretty important. >> Hey. >> Hey, what's happening? Working here in the bookstore, it's an atmosphere where I'm in contact with our history here in the United States. And it started to dawn on me that music was another expression that I could possibly use to get into as far as an Asian-American identity kind of thing. [ Drum Music ] >> Dr. Deborah Wong: Historic footage, this. And it's filmed at Senshin Buddhist Temple. And guess what? Tomorrow is their annual Obon Festival. And I'm going to fly home tomorrow and land at Ontario Airport and then drive straight to Senshin, yeah. I love their Obon ritual. And the last thing that happens at the Senshin Obon is that Kinnara always plays. It's about nine or ten o'clock at night at that point. And they play, as you know, horaku or hogaku, as Buddhists worship. I mean, it looks just like taiko you'd anywhere. But it's purpose is different. So that's one group. And they're still very much around. They're, many of them are now older. But they've brought in younger members. The group continues. Its spirit, its philosophy, its values remain very securely in place. So they're there. They're part of the scene. They're respected. They're known. They're recognized. They're pioneers. I want to turn to the second group now. And that's TAIKOPROJECT. And that is how they call themselves, TAIKOPROJECT. One word. All capital letters. Okay. And this is one could say a third generation taiko group. And it's mostly, when they started, over 10 years 15 years ago, they were in fact all in their 20s at that point. And this is part of what's going on with taiko more broadly; right? Is that taiko is growing, is expanding. There's literally more groups, more taiko players. More infrastructure than there once was. And what usually happens when you have more people doing things, right, is that they begin to divide off into different scenes. Different kinds of ways of doing things; right? So literally the taiko community, if we can still call it that, is now more and more diverse in terms of how they do things. And who they do things with. And so like regional taiko is now more of a thing than it once was, for instance. But these, the scene is still connected in very, very interesting ways. This is all about the rising generation. Any tradition faces this. What happens when new generations become part of that tradition? It all depends; right? Sometimes things are very carefully kept the same, whatever that might mean. But often it means that things begin to change. Again, responding to the conditions of the time, of the moment, of the place. So the rising generation of taiko players, and I think actually there's two rising generations at this point. Many of them were trained in collegiate groups. Taiko clubs on university and college campuses. Some of them also came up through community groups. Some of them are doing both, which is very interesting. A number of these folks are very aware of taiko history. Others are not at all. If they just joined taiko as a club on campus, you know, it's they're having a great time. They're learning a lot, but history is the least of it; right? Many of these groups, because these are young players, they're in their teens and 20s. They have like these amazing bodies; right? And, you know, they're brains are just like firing. And they create these pieces that are like incredibly complicated with lots of different sections. And, you know, complex meters. And, you know, all kinds of stuff like this. And some of them very much want to become professional taiko players at this point. Here's some lovely photos of some of the leaders now actually pushing 40. Some of the first rising gen. Michelle Fuji up on the right. Bryan Yamami, who founded TAIKOPROJECT. And these are members of the On Ensemble. Maz Baba. Kris Bergstrom. Shoji Kameda. This is TAIKOPROJECT, a photo that's now a decade old taken in Little Tokyo. Actually a couple blocks away. But, you know, this absolutely, this like sums up the spirit of TAIKOPROJECT, you know. They're all in their 20s pretty much at that point in time with all the energy and enthusiasm; right? A lot of their pictures are of them leaping into the air; right? This kind of thing. It's a great photo. And I might say that Bryan's also been very careful to have really professional standards brought to everything that TAIKOPROJECT does. Including PR. So TAIKOPROJECT, it's a group of third gen taiko players. Yeah, they're all about energy and kind of a playfulness as well. Which is not typical of like Japanese type of groups, if one can generalize. They're often, you know, like smiling. And, you know, there's laughter and jokes built into their pieces. They are very aware of their Japanese roots. But they are also unapologetically and openly American in what they're up to. And the membership of TAIKOPROJECT is almost entirely Asian-American. Not just Japanese-American, but also, you know, Chinese. Korean. Filipino. You know, different Asian-Americans. There are a few non-Asian Americans, but not many. Another photo of them. With Bryan Yamami and the founder in the middle there. And you need to see them play. This is one of their very well-known pieces. And, again, in sort of counterpoint to Japanese taiko values, Shoji Kameda, then a member of TAIKOPROJECT, wrote this piece explicitly as an open-source piece. Open to any taiko group to play. No ownership. Not tied just to TAIKOPROJECT. But a piece that he framed as being a gift to the taiko community. An omiyage. It means gift. Actually, it means a kind of gift that you bring back when you've been traveling somewhere. And you get little souvenirs to bring home and give to your friends and family. That's what an omiyage is, yeah. This is part of a much longer piece. [ Drum Music ] In, wearing the orange shirt in the center there, that's Yuta Kato. An amazing performer. Now has risen to a real position of leadership in the greater North American taiko community. And you can hear at one point some of the other players on stage yell out Yuta. You know, as he took off on his solo; right? One of the other things that TAIKOPROJECT has done very adroitly is to insert themselves into the greater L.A. entertainment industry. We are after all in L.A. ; right? It's about La-La Land. It's about, you know, all the opportunities that the film industry, the entertainment industry generally offers. And Bryan Yamami, the director and founder of TAIKOPROJECT in very well-known ways has made TAIKOPROJECT, has put them out there. And you find them in a number of commercials. You see them playing at industry conferences. You know, and they also play in community settings, to be very clear. They're playing in a lot of different places. But they're also cultivating this kind of thing. 2005, they played in this one minute commercial for the Mitsubishi Eclipse. [ Drum Music ] >> Introducing the all new 2006 Mitsubishi Eclipse. Available six speed, 263 horse, MIVEC V6. >> Dr. Deborah Wong: You get the idea. I have very mixed feelings about this commercial. I think it's really slick. It's really you know, it's well done. But it also feeds directly into like really tired ideas about, you know, Orientalist dragon lady, you know, Asian babe in a red dress kind of stuff, you know. And, or I should, it wouldn't even be Asian; right? It would be Oriental babe in a red dress. And there's more to be said about this commercial. I mean, one is that the folks who are looking for taiko players were making the commercial. And they went out into the greater L.A. area. Lots of taiko groups; right? And they auditioned a whole lot of different taiko players for this commercial back in the day. They also auditioned members of my group. And they looked at us, and we were a bunch of at that point sort of middle-aged, you know, not necessarily beautiful looking people who played taiko very well. But they looked at us and were like, okay, thanks very much. And then they went onto to the TAIKOPROJECT and said, oh, wow, look at these young women; right? You know, and so you end up with this commercial. Which I think shows off the playing ability of at least the young women in TAIKOPROJECT. But it feeds into other kinds of cultural tropes that I am tired of seeing; right? As I said, in 2016, a census was done. A voluntary census of taiko players. And we learned at that point that a majority of taiko players are, in fact, women. And Asian-American women at that. And a number of us had anecdotally and just impressionistically known that for a long time. But the numbers were confirmed at this point in time. And we also began to realize that our own way of thinking and talking about who plays taiko and why was becoming complicated. And has been actually for a while. One is the matter, is taiko Japanese? Some groups always say, well, this is Japanese taiko. Even if all of them are from Chicago, you know. Is taiko really a Japanese-American form? Is it now more broadly Asian-American. Which would be my argument. Or is it, in fact, for everyone, you know? And that's where things get dicy, in my opinion. I think any music at some level could be argued as being for everyone. You know, but what does it mean when suddenly any kind of music becomes ownable by anyone? Could be participated in by anyone? What does that mean? You know, what happens with global spread of certain traditions? What does it mean when every jazz band has a didgeridoo in the middle? You know, this kind of thing. So I have questions about what it means to be for everyone. And that might be where taiko's going. But, for instance, in the Midwest these are two different taiko groups in Indiana and Minneapolis. What does it mean when this becomes the face of taiko players? And let me be very clear, I'm not saying white people shouldn't play taiko. I am not saying that. I am not saying that. I'm not thinking it either. But I am saying that race and gender and community location is significant in any form of performance in terms of what are the stories being told? What is the narrative being served? And by whom? For whom? So taiko is changing. It's changing fast. And this is TAIKOPROJECT. It remains, you know, 90 percent Asian-American in it's personnel. And very much connected to the Japanese-American community. Let me turn to my final example, FandangObon. And this is a form, a project. It's really a project that is about connecting two very specific communities in L.A., in the greater L.A. area. It's about activism. It has everything to do with the fact that more than once interethnic violence and tension between different neighborhoods and communities in L.A. burst open in very violent ways. Very controversial ways. And so the L.A. uprising or riots of 1992 was not the first time that this happened. So I'm just offering you a little reminder that this is part of the landscape of Los Angeles and has been for a long time. So FandangObon is primarily these three amazing thinker, performers, activists. I cannot get enough time with these three people. On the left we have Quetzal Flores. We have Martha Gonzales. And the two of them with some other folks make up the band, Quetzal, which is all it's in Chicago a lot. And then Nobuko Miyamoto on the right here. The three of them are close friends. And they created the FandangObon project together five years ago. Fandango is central to a very specific area of Mexico of the Veracruz area. Fandango, it's a very explicitly participatory form of performance and community gathering. Obon is the Japanese and Japanese-American, it's now a summer festival. Originally a time when, part of the Japanese Buddhists recognition of ancestors. Some say a time when the souls of the departed come back and visit us. So both of these forms, Fandango and Obon are dynamic. Alive. Well. Not endangered in their communities; right? These are dynamic traditions. They're flourishing even. Both of them have these similarities in their emphasis on participation. That you don't need to be like a professional or trained person to participate in them. They're meant for anybody to be part of. They're focused on community. And both of them are deeply informed by the politics in the United States of the 1960s and 70s. When like the Chicano movement got going. The Asian-American movement got going. This is part of both scenes as well. So a glimpse of Obon in L.A. This is higashi [phonetic] with taiko in the middle. The dances are participated in by hundreds and hundreds of people. This is the time of year where every weekend a different temple is hosting Obon. And people go from one temple to another over the entire summer. So hundreds of people. Some temples there's over 1,000 people dancing altogether. Fandango. This photograph is from L.A. I think the next one is from Seattle. But the Fandango scene, son jarocho is very lively right now. And you can see how people just sort of gather into a loose circle. And there's dancing going on in the middle. And jaranas playing all around the outside of the circle. Fandango. Yeah, this is Cesar Castro, who does live this LA. So too much text. But the point being that there's a lot of similarities between these two forms. Both are all about participation. They're not about professional trained people. Both of them are open-ended and can go on for quite a while. It's not like, you know, they do say like, we're going to start at 7:00 and end around 9:00 kind of thing. But they could go on as long as you want them to go on. They are noncompetitive in their spirit. Doesn't matter whether you're a good dancer or a completely clueless dancer. You just get out there, and you do it. And nobody cares. Everybody admires good dancing when they see it. But you don't have to be good to be part. Both of them are transnational in the ways that performers are connected to people in the countries of origin. And there's often movement, continuous, between the two places. The two homelands. One emerged at part of the Chicanx movement in the United States. Fandango is very old. But in the United States it was part of the Chicano movement. Obon's a little different in that it's been part of JA community for over a century at this point. And was revived after World War Two. And you need to see FandangObon before I tell you more about it. It was on the mall two years ago as part of the festival, the Smithsonian's festival, Folklife Festival. Mark and I were part of, for a week we were on the mall playing this a couple times a day. It was a great experience. I still, like had such a great time. And it was so meaningful for all of us. But this video is from a few years before we all came to Washington. The first year of the project. [ Music ] Sorry, that was pretty loud. But what's going on here is that the East L.A., traditionally Mexican-American, Chicanx neighborhood and Little Tokyo, right across the L.A. River from East L.A. This project brought those two neighborhoods together. Very intentionally; right? This was a result of months and months and months of planning and discussion and meetings. Martha and Quetzal being deeply embedded in the East L.A. Chicanx community. Nobuko and others and Reverend Mas here being, you know, key figures in Little Tokyo. So they took the elements of both of those traditions, right, and they put them together. Fandango and Bon Odori. This re-embeds taiko in the kind of, you know, big ritual dance and more tradition that it actually is most profoundly embedded in. It took the dance steps from Bon Odori and injected moves from Fandango. Some of the foot movements. Other, you know, this is Guacamaya is from Fandango. It's a very careful attempt from culture barriers to create a new form. Not meant to be like fusion or anything like that. But meant to represent qualities of both traditions. And meant to be carried forward. We're now in the fifth year of FandangObon. It is being performed at many different Obon in the greater L.A. area this summer, as it has been for the past four years. So this is the amazing circle of performers that created the project together. And as Reverend Mas says, this shouldn't be a fusion. Because a lot of intercultural talk is often at that level, you know. It's fusion. It's like, you know, fusion cuisine, you know. Like where you throw some soy sauce and some nam pla and some lime and some adobo. And, you know, we put it all together. And it's great, you know. And that's kind of the extent of the thinking; right? Reverend Mas is like, no, it's not fusion. It's not fusion. It's putting different elements together, and it's doing it in a very thoughtful and intentional way. It's creating a conversation. A conversation, yeah. This is the mission. They've had to apply for grants to get some of this off of the ground. You often have to have a mission statement when you apply for grants, you know. So they had chances where they were able to sort or articulate what they were up to. And these are the bottom lines for the FandangObon project. Kind of musical dialogue. Open cultural borders. It's not about trying to make those borders dissolve or go away. Because that's magical thinking. It's about trying to open the borders, sometimes only temporarily, between diverse Angeleno communities. Can ritual circle dance, these are both ritual traditions; right? Can ritual circle dance help us to imagine a new vision for Los Angeles? And I would argue yes. I believe it has been happening through this project among other ways. And here we are all on the mall two years ago in our tent. Yeah, and there's Mark Rooney right in the middle, playing taiko. Yeah, I love this photo, yeah. So let me wrap this up. Yeah. Taiko in L.A. It could not be more dynamic. More vital. More alive. More rooted in community. I'm speaking to my values at this point. Because I'm a certain generation. I'm an ethnomusicologist. I'm an Asian-American. I bring certain hopes. I bring certain hopes to all kinds of different cultural forms. And taiko is definitely one of them. So the community base for taiko in L.A. remains very strong. This is Sogenji Buddhist Temple. My home temple. There's my teacher Reverend Tom [phonetic], playing. This is First Street. Yeah, playing at the end of the Nisei Week Festival. This is Nobuko, playing with some former members of Warriors of the Rainbow. You saw their photo back at the beginning of the presentation. With taiko right in the middle of the mix. Taiko is alive. And this is a mural in Little Tokyo right around the corner from the, kind of across the street from the Japanese-American National Museum. A community mural that was made about 20 years ago about Little Tokyo, and it's significance for JA community. And do you see what's over in the corner of the mural? Yeah. Those are members of Kinnara actually. If you want to know more about taiko, I'm happy to say there's now three books out in English, in the English language. "Taiko Boom" is more about, well, it is about taiko in Japan, not in North America. This book, the middle one "The Way of Taiko" was written by one of Tanaka Sensei's students. So it's very much about a view of taiko through San Francisco Taiko Dojo values. And this book "Drumming Asian America" just came out by Angie Ahlgren. And it's fantastic. And she looks mostly at taiko in the Midwest, not California. But the Midwest, in the greater Minneapolis area. And the kinds of race politics that come into play there. So, of course, at this point you're sitting there thinking, but I'm in DC. And I'm not in California. I'm in California. You're not in California. And where can I see taiko? Well, I'm happy to say that there is more than one place. But the main place, to my biassed state of mind, is Mark Rooney, who has been here for a few years now. And very quickly has established classes. Performances. He's based in College Park, Tacoma Park. There's his web page if you want to take a look. He's an amazing performer. Amazing musician. A great teacher. I've had lots of contacts with Mark over the years. I encourage you, he can tell you more. He said, you have to run away at this point pretty quickly. But you might want to grab him if you're at all curious. Because he's right here, after all. And I just want to say thank you to all of the people who made it possible for me to know more about taiko. To learn more. To be able to think deeply about it with them. And to allow me to be here today to tell you about it. And to share my obvious passion for this topic. Thank you for listening. [ Applause ] What is your tradition at this point? Do we all just sort of part ways or? >> Questions, anybody has questions? >> Dr. Deborah Wong: Okay. >> Thanks, Deb. [ Inaudible Question ] Where are the drums made? Where are the drums made? [ Inaudible Comment ] Yeah, just. >> Dr. Deborah Wong: I was hoping to come closer to you all. But, yeah. Where are the drums made? That is a very interesting matter, as a matter of fact. Originally, in the 70s there was a whole North American new tradition of making taiko out of wine barrels. Literally buying them from wineries. Disassembling them. Extensive techniques went into how to put them back together into really functioning taiko. And we all knew the different places where you could buy cow hide. Cow hide. You know, this kind of thing. And many collegiate groups, many community groups continued to learn how to do that. And it's not only considered to be important cultural knowledge to know how to make a taiko. But to do it communally, collectively together, in short, you know. To get covered with sawdust and all that stuff that goes along with it; right? This is beginning to change. Lots of folks still make their own drums. But five years ago one of the major Japanese taiko-making companies and families, Asano opens their first North American store. And it's in the greater L.A. area. It's in Torrance. Yeah, and they've created this amazing venue where they teach classes. They have a showroom where you can drop a lot of money on beautiful stuff. And more and more groups are buying their drums from Asano. I'm curious about how this is going to change the scene, you know. And some of those drums are made out of literally a single piece of wood. You know, it's very different from the wine barrel technique. You know, is this hauling us back to a certain sort of, you know, Japanese-centered way of doing things? It remains to be seen. Their stuff is expensive. So not everybody's going to be able to buy them. So the drums are from both here and there. Great question. >> Yeah, what are the difference between the Chinese drums [inaudible], Chinese drums and the taiko you're talking about? Because I know in China they have, different regions have different type of drum performance sort of. Did you see any relationship between the two? >> Dr. Deborah Wong: The simplest answer is like, no. You know, but I think one could point to, more broadly to an East Asian arc of percussion where some of the manufactured techniques are similar. But the context are pretty different. I do think, for what it's worth, that the global phenomenon of taiko becoming popular beyond Japan has led to, like, some Chinese drum groups that are drawing from ideas about Japanese taiko. And, you know, now they're playing, you know, like Lion Dance type Chinese drumming. But with a lot of kind of taiko moves and rhythms put in. It's very, very interesting. I mean, but the deeper answer is that, no, they're not directly related. And, two, they're part of a broader East Asian emphasis on certain kinds of percussion for ritual. For ritual. >> Oh, yeah. I think you're talking about more from U.S. point of view. But have you ever done any research in China? Because I know it's for thousands of years they have this drum performance. I'm sure in. >> Dr. Deborah Wong: This is true. >> In history is, you know, in history there must be some kind of a learning from each other. Or, you know, it might be the other way around. But I'm just throw a point here. But, you know, it's interesting I just want to make a comment. Because yesterday I went to Smithsonian. And the new director for the national art museum, National Museum for African Art, Gus Hayford. He also mentioned something about the African drum. And the, he brought up another perspective of this drum performance in the history that is more like, expressed quantifiable pain. And also express hope, you know, to manifest their sufferings. And also their hope for more equality in history. I guess to this type of performance more like entertainment. I'm just making comment, you know. He said that for African drum, it's more like, you know, almost like a code for revolution. But in certain type of the period during the history, that it was not allowed for African-American. [ Multiple Speakers ] >> Dr. Deborah Wong: Oh, for slaves in the United States. >> People to perform, to play drums. Because it's so inspiring, I guess. You know, it's like a [inaudible] for revolution. That's what he commented. I'm just trying to make some kind of connection here. >> Dr. Deborah Wong: Well, you just said a whole bunch of different things, and they're all very interesting. Yeah. [ Inaudible Comment ] Yeah. Let me put it this way. You know, if you look at sort of music in a global context, you know, every place has its own kinds of musical instruments. And that's like really interesting to those of us who look at world music. It's very striking that drums are found everywhere. And that, by that I mean, you know, a body with some sort of membrane stretched over the end. Which is then struck; right? That's what I mean by a drum. Again, in East Asia there are very old traditions of drumming. Many of them connected directly to Buddhism and in Japan's case Shinto as well. And to original religions, you know. Indigenous religions, if you will. Are they directly connected? I'm just going to doggedly say, no, they're not. Because, in fact, there's one way of sort of looking at music around the world. Which is to say, everything started in one place and then went to some place else. And there's a long tradition of saying, in east Asia, that stuff started in China, and it moved out from there; right? And in some cases it's true. In other cases it ends op sort of wiping out indigenous traditions and practices. Or at least attention to things that do originate in places outside China. So, I mean, these are complicated questions. And to bring it full circle back to where you ended with slaves. You know, in the African slave trade and diaspora, yeah, percussion was regarded by slave owners as inherently dangerous. Because it allowed slaves to continue to practice their own religions. And points of view. And ways of coming together communally. And that was a problem for slave owners. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Hi. >> Hi, thanks so much. It was really fun to hear about your work as usual. And it's a real treat with all the stuff with the festival going on. All of these events around world performance traditions are happening in town. I was curious, I missed the beginning. So if there was something you provided as context that you've already covered here. But I'm picking up a little bit on the way you were talking about the different groups that you're discussing. And sort of, you know, generations of musicians. Things are changing over time. And some of the things that I've researched in the Midwest and sort of European ethnic revivals and things you, people sometimes talk about patterns between different generations, you know. Different sort of trends toward assimilation. Wanting to recognize sort of cultural traditions versus not. And it sounds like there's a lot of different things going on here. So, you know, even in the 60s and 70s, it seems like there were very divergent philosophies about what this performance could mean. So I'm just curious, since you were talking about generations. If you're kind of seeing patterns as sort of things develop over time? >> Dr. Deborah Wong: Just as you can imagine, I see both patterns and sustained ideas and values. But I also see a lot of change at the same time, yeah. You know, not surprisingly; right? Both are going on, yeah. I do think we're at a tipping point in the greater taiko scene. I do think that the emphasis on Japanese-American community is going to begin to fall away, you know. And, you know, I'm trying to be ready for that and to accept it when it happens. For me personally, it still is the most meaningful kind of taiko. But clearly that's not the case for many people. So that's a change. So, you know, what you're saying points to the ways in which heritage, culture in general sort of plays out all of those things. Often at once; right? Sometimes in contradictory ways. You know, and I know you've seen some of that in your own research on the Midwest; right? Yeah, yeah. So those are the questions. Yeah. >> I want to thank Professor Wong again for coming for a wonderful lecture today. Let's give her another round of applause, please. [ Applause ] And thank you all for coming. And please join us again next Tuesday at 12 o'clock in this, in the main auditorium for a wonderful concert of Armenian music by Tut. [ Inaudible Comment ] Armenian, yes. So please come back then. And thank you again for coming. >> This has been a presentation of the Library of Congress. Visit us at loc.gov.